"Without further ado, here's the renovated statue of Feliticia Sanada!"

As she signaled for the cover to be dropped, Kenichi's heart started beating strong and fast, his eyes closed without being able to withstand this uneasy feeling.

As the cover hit the ground, people started clapping. The only one not clapping, Kenichi, opened his eyes and his heart sunk into the depts of his soul.

Before Kenichi was a 5 meter tall statue of his mother in some kind of armor. A giant shield by her feet and in her right arm, she held a rapier upwards, left hand resting on the top of the shield.

As he saw that, a flash filled Kenichi's head with tremendous pain, making him fall to one of his knees. "Ghー!"

Machi noticed this. "Kenichi? Kenichi!"

Bernardus looked at Kenichi and got worried. "What's wrong?! Kenichi?! Kenichi!"

Kenichi's mind faded to black.

As Kenichi's mind calmed down, he was floating in a black void. "What...? Where am I?"

A white light appeared before him and as soon as Kenichi tried to touch it, the light split into six colorful sparks, each a different color, before fading away.

Another white light appeared, far from him. As he noticed this, the light approached him at unbelievable speeds until he closed his eyes, expecting it to touch him, but the only thing Kenichi felt was...

PRESENT DAY: MAIN PLAZA, ROYAL CITY OF FELITICIA, TVARYN

Bernardus puts his left hand on Kenichi's right shoulder, gently nudging it. "Come back, dude!"

As Kenichi's eyes opened, they were silver, quickly fading to their regular scarlet hue. He stood up slowly with the help of the other two. "Where... am I?"

"The main plaza. Are you okay?" Machi said, worried for her friend.

"Yeah... Yeah, I am." Kenichi placed his hand on his forehead as tears started sneakily leaving his eyes.

"Are you really sure about that?" Bernardus points it out for him.

As he notices it, he cleans his face and gives them a weak smile. "Yeah. It was just a sudden headache, nothing more."

"If you say so..." Machi says. Kenichi turns to her and starts to laugh. Bernardus, though, was looking at Kenichi with a suspicious glare.

PRESENT DAY: XXXXX'X XXXXXX XXXXXXXX

An underling came rushing in his boss's premises. "Boss Ihote! We got a bird from our informant!"

"Hmm?" The anthropomorphic turtle looked at him. "What are you waiting for? Read the damn thing!"

"Y-Yes, sir! It says here that the people that arrived at the Royal City were Tarozaemon Kitagawa and two kids!"

"So Kitagawa's here?! Ah! How lucky can I be?! What about the kids, though? Who are they?"

"The informant did mention their names. The girl is Machi Shirogane and the boy's Kenichi."

"Kenichi? Kenichi what?!"

"It doesn't say, sir!"

"Band of incompetent fools..." He said, rubbing his forehead.

"Though, the informant said they were spying on Kenichi and the girl at today's statue reveal."

"The renewed statue? The one from hours ago? What about it?"

"Looks like this kid Kenichi had a weird reaction when the statue was revealed. His friends looked worried, so they probably don't know why that happened, I guess..."

"A weird reaction? Well, that's new... yet interesting for some reason..." Ihote looks out the huge window near his desk. "Tell the informant to give me more details on this Kenichi kid and, more important, if Kitagawa has the Stone."

"Yes, sir!" The underling left.

"Kenichi, uh?" Ihote repeated his name, interested on this unexpected turn of events.

PRESENT DAY: MAIN PLAZA, ROYAL CITY OF FELITICIA, TVARYN

Tarozaemon would find the group after they rested for some hours in some benches. "Found you guys, finally. So, Kenichi?" Kenichi looks at him and nods. "I see... Well, Bernardus, are you up for a spare session, right now?"

Bernardus stands up quickly. "Finally I get to have my revenge against you! This time I won't lose!"

"Though it's like 20 to zero for me, at the time."

"Hey! It's actually 17 to zero, thank you very much! And that last fight should totally not count!"

Tarozaemon smiles. "Though, your opponent for today won't be me."

"Oh, you won't? Then who is it?"

"I want you to fight with Kenichi."

Kenichi stands up. "What?!"

"You still haven't figured out how to use your SOUL properly, so take this time to practice."

"Okay, I guess..." He scratches the back of his head.

Bernardus smiles. "Shall we?"

After they got themselves in their respective positions, a crowd was suddenly around them, cheering for the fight to start.

"What's up with these people...?" Kenichi said, nervously looking around.

"This is normal." Tarozaemon answered him, guarding Kenichi's sword. "This city's citizens are crazy about fights. They love them so much that they have a tournament every year."

"I see..." Kenichi was kinda weirded by this, but there was nothing he could do to change this.

Bernardus got into his stance, smiling. "Are you ready?"

"Yeah!" Kenichi got into a stance, waiting for Bernardus to take a step towards him.

Bernardus smirks, disappearing from sight and suddenly reappearing behind Kenichi, his dark brown eyes shining yellow.

He tried to punch Kenichi, but suddenly Kenichi spins his body quickly and blocks Bernardus' fist, going back a few inches. "Wow! That was a great reaction!"

"Thank you, but I won't be just blocking!" Kenichi tried to use his SOUL to jump quickly towards Bernardus for a punch, but his opponent just smiled at this, as he created an electric shield that'd block Kenichi's punch, electrocute him and send him flying some meters.

The crowd cheered this smart defensive play from Bernardus. "Are you still good to continue?"

Kenichi stands up, smiling. "Of course! Bring it!"

"Good!" Bernardus smirks, quickly appearing in front of Kenichi, sweeping his legs so fast that he didn't even have the time to understand what was going on until he was suddenly on the ground.

Kenichi then rolled his body back and stood up. "You're way better than me."

"Does that mean that you'll give up?"

"No. It means I need to think smarter!" He says, as he kicks the ground lifting up enough dust to block Bernardus sight.

"Hmpf! Is that all you've got?!" He turns back and discharges lighting, but Kenichi wasn't on his back. "What?!"

As he tries to turn to the cloud of dust again, Kenichi drops a flying right kick right on his face, his eyes shining silver. A quick flash is seen in the zone of impact for less than a second, before Bernardus is sent flying away.

The crowd dodges Bernardus' flying body just in time, making him fall on his back some meters away from the action.

Kenichi smiles as he sees this. "SOUL is like a muscle. The more I use it, the more comfortable I feel using it. It's just as I thought, you can use it to keep your body lighter so it moves faster, but I also learnt that the speed from lighting SOUL users is something special to that element."

As Bernardus stands up, he smirks, cleaning the dirt near his mouth. "You actually landed a good hit on me... Who would've known?"

"There's more from where that came from! Why don't youー"

Kenichi would get interrupted, as Bernardus seemingly just teleported right to his face, trying to punch his nose. Kenichi closed his eyes, preparing himself for the pain, but...

As Bernardus' fist connected to Kenichi's face, a flash of light pushed Bernardus away yet again, this time even with more force than the previous push.

As Kenichi opened his eyes, after waiting for a hit that never came, he saw Bernardus on the ground yet again. "So you can reflect attacks if you concentrate SOUL in one spot? Is that what I'm doing?"

Bernardus stands up and laughs. "Okay, okay! I give you the win! Never met someone with such an unorthodox use of SOUL before."

Kenichi approaches him and shakes his hand. "Hey, you're good as hell too. I think that of you didn't back down a notch, I would've lose quite easily."

They both laugh, as Tarozaemon smiles. "It's fun to see that you're getting better, but you need to train with your sword, if you're gonna stand a chance in the Outlands." He tells Kenichi, giving him his sword back.

"Of couー" Kenichi was suddenly interrupted by two screaming people. "Uh?"

A couple was making a fuss in the main plaza, catching the attention of an old man that approached them "What is this about?! Why are you disrupting the peace of this city?!"

"Old man!" The guy said. "You were right, the monster really exists!"

This caught the attention of the group that traded some glances, before looking at the couple again.

Bernardus, instead, approached the old man. "What's this about a monster, Beros?"

The old man turns to Bernardus. "Oh, Bernardus! I didn't tell you, because I didn't wanna trouble you, but quite the rumours are surfacing about the good ol' Mountain Fukujima."

This name would make Kenichi's eyes widen. "I'm... sorry, but... do you know why the mountain is called that?"

"Hmm? I don't believe we met, young man. My name is Beros and I'm clothes maker in this city. About the name, legends say that it was named after Founder Feliticia's love interest, but that's just legends."

Kenichi trembled. This had to be a joke, right? What's the odds of a kingdom having his mother's given name and a mountain his father's surname? What was Project PW? What was Tvaryn? Was this really just a game or some kind of virtual world? Then Kenichi just remembered that all the pain he felt so far, felt way too real. All the touches, the people's touches and words. No way this was all programmed. But if it was not... does this mean that all this was an actual world with living beings? Was Kenichi really communicating with aliens using Japanese language? Why was that? Why was his parents referenced?! He needed to know more. But now, he knew for a certain that this world hid the truth behind his mother's disappearance.

"Wait! Is there any legend about the returning of the Founder? Like a successor or something?" Kenichi asked.

"Not really, no." Beros answers him and then turns to Bernardus. "Well, as I was saying, the rumours involve a monster that's protecting the mountain's peak."

"Is there something there?" Bernardus asks.

"From past scriptures, we know that there's a small cave at the mountain's peak where the Founder rested, before coming down and blessing our city with her powers."

Kenichi clenched his fists. "Calm down. You need to calm yourself down. You can't lose sight of your goal when such a clue is so near us. I'll go."

Borus was very surprised by this. "You mean to the peak? Boy, that's dangerous! Far too dangerous!"

"Well, it's the only way to ascertain with clarity whether there's a monster or not, right?"

"Well, yes, but..." Borus was worried, but suddenly Tarozaemon got closer to Kenichi.

"I'll go with him. In that way, I can protect him against anything that may happen."

"I'll go too! I'm agile enough to help you guys!" Machi said, excited to climb the mountain.

"You youngsters... With those attitudes, you only bring yourselves closer to death than us old folk." Borus says, brushing his long white beard. "But I wish you the best of lucks."

Bernardus flails his arms around. "I'm gonna send the Queen a bird and then I'll try to catch you guys up!"

Kenichi nodded, as he attached his sword'd scabbard to his belt. "Let's go."

As he says that, Tarozaemon and Machi follow him towards the mountain.

"I don't know what I'll find there, but one thing is certain... I'll find out what happened to you, mother!"

PRESENT DAY: MOUNTAIN FUKUJIMA, TVARYN

A girl wearing a single white cloth, with scarlet hair and eyes, stood up from the cliff where she always sat. "Is this it? Is this where peace ends?"

...

"Where are you?"

END OF DOCUMENT VIII